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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Calvert, Robert A., author. | De León, Arnoldo, 1945– author. | Cantrell, Gregg, 1958– author.
Title: The history of Texas / Robert A. Calvert, Arnoldo De León, Gregg Cantrell.
Description: Sixth edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019053446 (print) | LCCN 2019053447 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119581437 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119581451 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119581444 (epub)
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053446
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053447
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: Between Abilene and Albany. Courtesy Randy Bacon, artist. www.randybacon.net.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Chapter 5 Statehood, Secession, and Civil War, 1848–1865
Chapter 8 Texas in the Age of Agrarian Discontent, 1886–1900
Chapter 9 Texas in the Progressive Era, 1900–1929
Chapter 10 Texas and the Great Depression, 1929–1941
Chapter 11 War, Prosperity, and Modernization, 1941–1960
Chapter 12 Texas in Transition, 1960–1986
Figure 1.4 Early Spanish exploration.
Figure 2.1
Figure 3.2
Figure 3.5 Ethnic Settlements, 1836.
Figure 3.7 The Battle of San Jacinto.
Figure 4.1 The Republic of Texas and boundary claims.
Figure 4.3 Towns of the Republic of Texas, 1836–1845.
Figure
Figure 5.2
Figure 5.4
Figure 6.9 West Texas forts and the Comanche Range, 1866 to 1880s.
Figure 6.13 Cattle Trails.
Figure 7.3 Major Texas Railroads to 1900.
Figure 8.3 Ethnic settlements 1880.
Figure 9.1 Oil fields of Texas and date of discovery 1894–1918.
Figure 9.17 “Wet and dry” counties of Texas 1911.
Figure 13.8 The Ogallala Aquifer, as Part of the High Plains Aquifer System.
Figure 14.4 Texas counties.
Figure 14.10 Texas today.
Preface and Acknowledgments
The sixth edition of The History of Texas presents the fascinating story of the various peoples who have inhabited the land we know as Texas. Readers of this book will gain an understanding of the forces of cause and effect that have shaped the disparate pasts of different groups within the state as well as the heritage shared by all Texans. They will also develop an appreciation for the dynamic interpretations that scholars give to historical movements and specific events.
When initially published in 1990, the textbook was innovative in several ways. First, it took a social history approach, placing ordinary Texans at the center of the story, instead of the traditional “great man” approach. It thus became the first Texas history textbook consistently and systematically to include the histories of women, Tejanos, African Americans, and working‐class people. The book was also innovative in its chronological coverage. Texas history textbooks had traditionally emphasized the nineteenth century at the expense of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and particularly of the twentieth century. This Sixth Edition devotes two-thirds of its pages to the post‐Civil War era and nearly 50 percent to the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries.
All peoples make history; we have continued to honor that tenet by incorporating the many cultures embraced by the Texas experience. The same principle also drove our effort to give due attention to the lives of ordinary Texans, as seen in the continued coverage of topics such as agriculture, industrialization, urbanization, economic disparity, migration patterns, and demographic change. Also included are the unsung subjects who contributed to the Texas saga, among them plain white folks, women, and the leaders and members of local labor, agricultural, and other grassroots organizations. Like its predecessors, this edition also pays attention to the history of folklore, music, literature, sports, religion, and other aspects of Texas culture that help determine the flavor of Texas, past and present. Believing that the history of Texas in recent times is as significant as that of past periods, we once again provide a comprehensive, unflinching analysis of Texas history in the more modern era.
Since 1990, the authors have kept abreast of new scholarly literature, incorporating it into each new edition and keeping the book historiographically current and relevant. Here we continue this practice. We have amplified some parts of the text and streamlined others for clarity. Therefore, the sixth edition features expanded discussions on the era between 1821 and 1848, on hardships civilians experienced during the Civil War, on agricultural
Preface and Acknowledgments
reform in the early twentieth century, on women and minority groups, on the modern LGBTQ‐rights movement, and on recent environmental issues. At the same time, we cut statistics where we thought them repetitious or where we felt removing them would not harm the narrative. We also dropped passages when we considered them to overlap with information covered in American history survey classes. Our intent has always been to produce a highly readable work.
Like the text, we have updated the lists of suggested readings that conclude each chapter. Space limitations permitted the mention of only a small number of titles that have informed our writing or that we think must come to the attention of serious students of the state’s past. Primary material also proved crucial to this endeavor, particularly in the final chapter, whose suggested reading list includes many of the online sources that provided information on contemporary Texas.
Finally, and like its predecessor, the sixth edition offers students and instructors a dynamic website in support of the text, making The History of Texas ideal for traditional as well as online courses.
Over the course of six editions and nearly three decades, we have accumulated more debts than we can acknowledge here. Our greatest thanks, of course, must go to the late Robert A. “Bob” Calvert, a devoted scholar, writer, and teacher who conceptualized this book in the 1980s and contributed directly to the first two editions. Over the course of his long career, Bob influenced thousands of students of Texas history, a subject to which he was ever devoted.
Other scholars who have contributed in varied and important ways include Paul D. Lack, Larry D. Hill, Fane Downs, Charles Martin, Alwyn Barr, William Childs, Jesús F. de la Teja, Walter L. Buenger, Robert Wooster, David La Vere, Randolph B. Campbell, Charldean Newell, Bernard Weinstein, James E. Crisp, Ty Cashion, George N. Green, Carl H. Moneyhon, James Smallwood, Patrick G. Williams, H. Sophie Burton, F. Todd Smith, Paul J. Sugg, Neil Carman, Karen Hadden, Barbara J. Rozek, Paul Carlson, Richard Bruce Winders, and the late Malcolm D. McLean, Dorothy DeMoss, Ben Procter, Barry A. Crouch, Stanley Siegel, Norman D. Brown, and Robert Weddle. In preparing the sixth edition, we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Andrew J. Torget, Walter L. Buenger, and Paul J. Sugg.
We also owe a special debt of gratitude to our friend and editor for the first five editions, Andrew Davidson, who has continued his long tradition of help and support, even though he has now moved on to other enterprises. It is safe to say that this book would not exist without him.
Arnoldo De León
San Angelo
Gregg Cantrell
Fort Worth
About the Companion Website
This book is accompanied by a companion website:
https://www.wiley.com/go/calvert6
The website includes the following supplementary materials:
• Test Bank
• PowerPoint presentations
• Student Guide
Contact of Civilizations, 1521–1721 1
The story of Texas begins many thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Between 12,000 and 40,000 years ago nomads from Asia trekked from present‐day Siberia to present‐day Alaska, entering North America in a series of distinct migrations. As they hunted for edible plants and animals, the nomads crossed broad fields of ice that spanned the Bering Strait during this long period of intermittent low sea levels. Even after the Bering Sea finally reclaimed this bridge of ice, other Asians managed to navigate the waters of the strait to arrive in the new continent. More such migrations followed but ultimately ceased, cutting off the early voyagers from humankind elsewhere on Earth.
Scientists now agree that American Indians descended from a relatively small number of parent migrants who contributed to the “founding” gene base. Once the ancestors of the American Indians were cut off from other Asians, natural selection and genetic mutation produced distinctive physical types.
Through the ages, these ancient nomads dispersed throughout the vast lands of North and South America. As bands struck out in different directions in search of fresh sources of game and vegetation, different cultural and linguistic patterns appeared. These cultural patterns further evolved over time as New World peoples began to develop agriculture, around 7000 bc. Once prehistoric societies learned to till the soil and harvest plants, human beings began to exercise some control over nature and develop strong ties to the land. Family units eventually formed into complex social and political organizations. Religious figures emerged as leaders or spiritual advisers, and gender roles became more clearly defined. As each group adapted in order to survive in its local environment, distinctive customs and practices developed, as evidenced by the different types of housing, decoration, clothing, and tools used by the people of particular regions.
The Diversity of New World Cultures
Various groups and cultures spread throughout all regions of the New World. Although historians disagree over population estimates, most concur that more people lived in what
we now know as Latin America than remained in North America. At the time of Columbus’s voyage in 1492, roughly twelve million people lived north of the line dividing present‐day Mexico and the United States; between this boundary and the Isthmus of Panama lived an estimated thirty‐five million people; finally, some sixty million people inhabited the continent of South America and the Caribbean Islands.
Of the pre‐Columbian civilizations, that of the Maya has generally been considered the most intellectually advanced. Situated in what are today the Yucatán Peninsula and Guatemala, the Maya, during the height of their civilization (about ad 300 to ad 900), made brilliant advances. For example, the Mayas’ discovery of the zero cipher, well before Arab mathematicians introduced the concept to Europe in the thirteenth century, helped them make significant achievements in architecture, astronomy, and calendrics. Speculation lingers as to why the Mayan civilization declined. A deadly disease may have spread throughout the population, natural catastrophes may have produced food shortages, or a social revolution to undermine the ruling class may have hastened their demise.
Another major civilization thrived for a time at Anáhuac (Valley of México), this of the Toltecs, who raised a mighty empire at Tula until drought and famine forced them to desert their capital city. In 1215, new barbarians named the Méxica, but more commonly known as Aztecs, arrived from unknown parts in the north and built upon the collapsed Toltec empire by establishing themselves in Tenochtitlán, today’s Mexico City. One of the cleanest and most populous cities in the world at the time of its “discovery” by explorers from the Old World, Tenochtitlán contained pyramids, royal palaces, and other large structures; homes for the several social classes; canals crafted from stone that served as waterways for canoes, botanical gardens, and zoos; and causeways connecting the island city to the mainland. Although the Aztecs had a warlike disposition and a penchant for human sacrifice, they abided by strict codes of morality, esteemed education, adhered to an honest and efficient system of legal and political administration, and excelled in various branches of the arts.
In South America, another civilization flourished at the time of the European conquest of the Western Hemisphere. Embracing an area extending from today’s Ecuador to Chile, the Inca civilization had its headquarters in Cuzco, in present‐day Peru, and ruled through a remarkably efficient system of civil administration. A road system superior to any in Europe at the time enabled government officials to carry out their responsibilities, laborers to travel throughout the empire to maintain public works, and soldiers to move quickly in order to protect the realm and suppress rebellions. Unsurpassed by other Native American civilizations in architectural skills, the Incas designed and built structures that flexed with the tremors of earthquakes, resuming their original forms after each jolt. The Incas also possessed advanced scientific skills. Amazingly, archaeological findings point to their apparent success in performing brain surgery.
The Indian tribes that inhabited the North American continent generally developed less sophisticated civilizations. The Northeast Woodlands Indians, found from the Ohio Valley to the Atlantic Ocean and southward to Chesapeake Bay, lived in loghouse villages or in wigwams, and survived by farming corn, squash, and beans near their homes, or by hunting deer and wild fowl and fishing from canoes. Among the most famous of the Woodlands tribes was the Iroquois, who despite their renown as warriors organized the famous League of the Iroquois. The League, considered the most effective Indian alliance north of the Aztec Empire, succeeded in ending the chronic bloody conflicts among its member tribes.
South of the Woodlands tribes, stretching from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi Valley and even into East Texas, lived a culture group that maintained ties to moundbuilding societies of a past age. These were the Choctaws, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees–later referred to by Anglo Americans as the “Five Civilized Tribes” because they adopted European American ways. The most famous of the descendants of the mound builders were the Natchez. At the time of the European exploration of the area, trappings of the classic Natchez era remained evident in villages along the lower Mississippi River. These villages surrounded temple mounds and ceremonial council houses, the identifying traits of the ancient mound builders.
A third advanced culture group that flourished at the time of Europeans’ arrival in the Western Hemisphere was located roughly from what is now West Texas to Arizona, and north as far as southern Colorado. Here the Hopi and Zuñi created a distinctive cultural heritage (Figure 1.1). These tribes, who belonged to a group that Spaniards referred to collectively as Pueblos, resided in planned towns consisting of stacked, apartment‐type complexes, sometimes two or more stories high. For defensive purposes, the Pueblos built their adobe villages into rock walls or upon steep mesas and structured them so as to oversee the spacious streets and squares below. In the fifteenth century, the Pueblos cultivated corn and other crops, developed irrigation canals, used cotton to make clothing, and lived much in the same manner as did the European peasant of the same period.
Figure 1.1 White Shaman. Cave art of the prehistoric inhabitants of the Pecos River area. Credit: Amistad National Recreation Area.
The Indians of Texas
Anthropological evidence reveals that before the Europeans arrived, a number of distinct culture groups lived in the varied geographical areas of what is now Texas. Such pre‐horse people shared numerous characteristics, certainly the result of evolutionary processes, adaptation to historical situations, and common responses to environmental factors. Generally, Native Americans bonded around self‐reliant bands or extended families. Leaders rose through the ranks, gaining their positions by a proven display of bravery, wisdom, or special attributes. Their religion embraced the supernatural; today, it would be said that they were animistic. They thought, for instance, that natural objects–whether the galaxy, Earth’s geographical landscape, the flora or fauna–had an existence that paralleled that of humans and could be summoned for help in times of need. These culture groups recognized social/gender distinctions. Women cared for the household: cooking, preserving foods for later use, and fashioning animal skins into clothing. Women maintained a close contact with the land, cultivating it, foraging for edible products, and gathering clay from which they made cooking utensils or wares to be traded with other Indian nations.
Certain shared traits notwithstanding, Native American civilizations in pre‐Columbian Texas were quite diverse. Several of the peoples had different places of origin, some tracing their lineage to culture groups in the modern‐day US South, northern Mexico, or the Rocky Mountain region. No common language united Native American groups in Texas. Although some made war with or raided neighboring groups regularly, most preferred to avoid conflict and lived in terror of attacks by aggressors. Numerous peoples preferred a sedentary life, whereas others maintained a nomadic existence. Adaptation to local environment tended to separate one culture group from another. Thus, one Texas tribe might build villages (and reside in permanent dwellings constructed of cane and grass–Figure 1.2) and rely on farming, whereas another might stay on the move, living in portable shelters such as hide teepees as they migrated seasonally to gather wild vegetation or pursue game, trapping their prey and killing it with clubs and other crude weapons. Region also determined a group’s economy, as livelihoods might turn on agriculture, hunting big game such as the American bison (commonly known as buffalo), or perhaps a mixture of both combined with intertribal trade.
The Coastal Indians
Along the coast of southern Texas and in parts of the Trans‐Nueces lived the Karankawa and Coahuiltecan peoples. Both groups had common roots in modern‐day northern Mexico: the Coahuiltecans were tied linguistically and otherwise to the Native inhabitants of Coahuila. The Karankawas and the Coahuiltecans lacked formal political organization; social life revolved around the family, extending into small autonomous bands (related by kin) presided over by a chieftain. Their religious life was primitive, and they believed that supernatural entities governed the cosmos.
Their respective environments of marshy terrain close to the Gulf Coast and the chaparral of the brush country were harsh ones. The territory of the Karankawa extended along a thin area running down the coast from Matagorda Bay (some archaeologists believe even as far north as the Lower Brazos River region) to Corpus Christi Bay, and the Coahuiltecans lived in the Gulf Coast Plain and much of what is today considered South Texas. Both
Figure 1.2 Over 1,200 years ago, a group of Caddo Indians known as the Hasinai, who were part of the great Mound Builder culture of the southeast, built a village and ceremonial center twenty‐six miles west of present‐day Nacogdoches. Shown here is a reproduction of a typical Caddo house like those found here at this Mount site. Source: Courtesy of the Caddoan Mounds State Historic Park, Texas Parks and Wildlife.
tribes moved frequently, their migrations generally corresponding to the change of seasons. Over the years, the nomadic Karankawas and Coahuiltecans had learned the ecology of their respective regions well; they knew when nature produced its greatest yields and the precise grounds where such bounties lay. Indeed, they tended to live in the same general site during one part of the year before moving on to another favorite camp. To guarantee a reliable and abundant food supply, during the fall and winter months the Karankawas stayed close to the coast, where they relied heavily on shellfish, aquatic plants, and waterfowl, but also hunted deer and even alligators. For life along the bays and lagoons, the Karankawas built small canoes from tree trunks and made nets, an assortment of traps, lances, and bows and arrows. The Coahuiltecans also preferred to inhabit specific locations during the winter, places where they could expect to find abundant roots and other easily attainable foodstuffs. During the spring and summer, the Karankawas moved inland to the coastal prairies and woodlands. There, they relied less on marine life (though numerous rivers and creeks still provided them with fish) and more on land animals–among them deer, rabbits, prairie fowl, and occasionally buffalo–and the annual offerings of nuts, beans, and fruits produced by indigenous trees and shrubs. During the warmer seasons, the Coahuiltecans foraged for nature’s yields over the large expanse of South Texas. They took advantage of the spring rains, catching fish trapped in receding pools of water, and hunting deer, lizards, birds, fish, and insects and gathering mesquite beans, prickly pears, pecans, and roots. Dome‐shaped wigwams covered by animal skins or improvised windbreaks served as the most common type of Karankawa and Coahuiltecan housing. When it came time to move, they simply dismantled their shelters, taking them and other useful items with them.
The
The Northeast Texas Indians
East of the Trinity River, tribes related to the Indians of the Mississippi Valley prospered, among them the Caddos. Many centuries before Europeans had realized the existence of the New World, people roamed the lower Mississippi River expanse in quest of edible plants and small game. Sometime around ad 800, however, these hunting‐and‐gathering peoples turned to farming, cultivating a variety of vegetables, among them beans, squash, and their major staple–maize, or corn. Around ad 1200, the Mississippian civilization reached its high point of cultural growth and tribal strength before entering a gradual decline. The Caddo Indians of Texas constituted the westernmost flank of Mississippian culture, owing much to it in the way of farming, village life, and religion, though the Caddos had also borrowed cultural traits from tribes to the west (in New Mexico) and the south (Mexico). Although Mississippian culture in general was in a state of decline when Columbus sailed from Spain, Caddoan civilization was persevering.
Caddo settlements extended from the Trinity River, due north past the Red River, and as far east as the Mississippi River. Stable communities–consisting of isolated rural villages–were generally located on the best farming lands in the region. Close to sources of fresh water (primarily rivers and streams), the Caddos constructed dome‐shaped homes from grass and cane. As many as four families shared one such domicile, for Caddo home life apparently revolved around multifamily dwellings. With fields surrounding their settlements, the Caddos had easy access to their principal source of sustenance. Like peoples in the other parts of the world at the time, the Caddos planted twice a year–in the spring and early summer. Notably, Caddo society entrusted the role of agricultural production to women, who through experience and with good judgment tended the plants (generally corn, squash, and beans), rotated the crops as needed, fertilized the soil (with the droppings of wild animals native to eastern Texas), then carefully stored the excess harvest for use during lean times.
Chiefs known as the xinesí presided over Caddo society, both as political and religious leaders. Serving in a hereditary position, the xinesí (whose authority extended over several Caddo communities) mediated between his followers and a supreme deity–the world’s creator who influenced both good and bad things in life–and led religious celebrations, ceremonies, and festivals. In Caddo society, the xinesí was a person whose high status demanded respect from tribal members who looked up to him as a powerful figure able to determine such phenomena as a successful sowing; as such, the xinesí’s wishes and directives were to be followed unquestionably. Under the supervision of the xinesí, the Caddos constructed impressive temple mounds (signature traits of their Mississippian kin) that served both as storehouses and places in which to conduct important meetings and ceremonies. Below the xinesí in the Caddo religious order were lesser medicine men who attended to the spiritual and physical needs of the people. Adept in the use of medicinal herbs and various folk remedies, these healers treated a multitude of wounds and illnesses.
Governing individual Caddo communities (also through hereditary right) were the caddí. Such rulers were members of the upper stratum. Although all but disqualified from holding office, a commoner might elevate himself to a leadership position through feats of bravery on the battlefield. Ostensibly, the Caddo administrators ruled efficiently, for at the time the Spaniards began their exploration of Texas, the Caddo world prospered. Lieutenants enforced the policies determined by the caddí, directing commoners in their tasks of tilling the soil, building shelters for all concerned, and seeing to the public good, which included defending the nation from outside threats. War was not, however, integral to Caddo culture.
Indeed, they undertook attacks on neighboring tribes primarily as a social pressure valve, a way to let eager young men act out their bravado, or as opportunities for anyone wishing to rise in social status.
The Caddos granted women rights and recognitions not generally accorded by European societies of the era. Their society was a matrilineal one, meaning that authority was handed down, both in families and in the larger clan, through the mother’s line, so women held a distinct and influential place in kinship networks, within which they molded Caddo social conduct, privileges, and duties. Women could also influence individuals’ economic, political, and social standing as they related to the broader group. Finally, it was women who classified others vis‐à‐vis the clan–as, for instance, friend or foe. In such a kin‐based civilization, Caddo women gave advice on matters of intertribal trade and relations, including terms of war and peace. Ordinarily, women’s presence among visiting Indian delegations symbolized peace; their absence from such teams conveyed hostility.
Although they primarily relied on farming for their sustenance, the Caddos supplemented their diet through other means. In addition to gathering roots, nuts, and fruits, another task assigned to women, Caddo men hunted the native game of eastern Texas: turkeys, rabbits, or quail in the summer; deer and bear (useful for lard, clothing, and shelter) in the fall and winter; and buffalo (present on the western rim of the Caddo confederacy) when the supply of other foods grew scarce during the colder months. Comfortable in their stability and self‐reliance, the Caddos also engaged in extensive trade. Eventually the Caddo world served as a hub for those bringing goods from as far away as New Mexico, northern Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. The Caddos welcomed many trading partners, bartering their baskets, tools, decorative art, and weapons for certain types of vegetables, furs, and other luxury items not otherwise available to them in East Texas.
The Jumano Indians
Another group inhabiting Texas in the final years of the fifteenth century was the Jumanos, who inhabited the Trans‐Pecos area (Figure 1.3). Ethnographers and other scholars still disagree over the distinct features of Jumano culture. Opinions also differ as to what specific peoples (or tribes) made up the Jumanos, what linguistic groups they derived from, and the precise regions they occupied. Some studies note that the term Jumano, as used by the first European observers, delineate those descendants of the Tanoan‐speakers, a linguistic group from New Mexico, or those tribes that made their living as traders and traveled as far east as the South Plains of Texas. To some anthropologists, the word Jumano identifies people of a shared cultural background, and not necessarily a general grouping of people with a common language or a specific livelihood.
Recent research presents the Jumanos as descending from the Jornada line of the Mogollón, a people indigenous to modern‐day Arizona, New Mexico, and neighboring regions. Sometime in the mid‐fifteenth century, part of the Jornada tribe began migrating eastward toward the Trans‐Pecos, ultimately establishing permanent settlements in the West Texas river valleys such as El Paso, but more specifically in the region that the Spaniards later referred to as La Junta de los Ríos (the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Rio Conchos). Quite plausibly, the whole of western Texas became the domain of the Jumanos–more militant tribes such as the Apaches and Comanches would not enter the region until sometime in the seventeenth century–for what were most certainly Jumano settlements (many of them temporary) have been found beyond the fertile river valleys. In
any case, the Jumano civilization stretched from eastern New Mexico and perhaps into Oklahoma, and south to northern Chihuahua in Mexico, with its easternmost appendage extending into the South Plains. In these hinterlands, they made a living by farming and hunting.
At La Junta de los Ríos and other permanent settlements, the Jumanos worked irrigated produce gardens, cultivating traditional farm crops such as maize, beans, and squash. The Rio Conchos and the Rio Grande provided them with a variety of fish. Jumano communities resembled those used by their kinspeople in New Mexico–clustered single‐family dwellings constructed of reeds and grass formed a village, over which a chief ruled. Such farm hamlets were indicative of the branch of the Jumanos that had opted for a sedentary life, though certain village members left on seasonal hunting expeditions.
Hunting nearly full time became the unique trait of the nomadic Jumanos of the West Texas plains. Living in transient camps, this branch of the Jumano people roamed the vast grasslands throughout the spring and fall in pursuit of a variety of game: from snakes, fish, and birds, to deer, antelope, rabbits, armadillos, and, naturally, the indispensable buffalo, which furnished them with meat for food and hides for shelter and clothing. During winter, the hunters relocated near the more permanent villages of their farming relatives, launching the hunting cycle anew in the spring.
Both the sedentary and nomadic Jumanos earned reputations among the Spaniards (who entered the world of the Jumanos in the seventeenth century) as accomplished merchants–as noted previously, some Europeans used the word Jumano synonymously with trader. La Junta de los Ríos served as a distribution hub for provisions, trade items, and intelligence coming in from northern Mexico, the Indian villages of the upper Rio
Figure 1.3 This famous panther is an outstanding example of the prehistoric art of the Lower Pecos people. Credit: Amistad National Recreation Area.
Grande, the world of the Coahuiltecans, or from the exchange marts of the Caddos. The nomadic Jumanos appear to have made commerce as much a part of their way of life as was hunting, and establishing trading villages on the plains as centers of exchange. In these posts, they bartered products manufactured or acquired by the tribespeople–bows and arrows, pearls, and animal furs and hides. But they also traveled widely to exchange horses (stolen from local ranches in northern New Spain), buffalo products, and foodstuffs for vegetables and fruits raised by local tribes, woolen textiles or pottery produced in New Mexico, or wares and foods available through the Caddos’ own commercial network.
The Plains Indians
Strikingly different from the aforementioned Native American tribes were the Apaches, Comanches, Wichitas, and Tonkawas. None of these Indian peoples–all of whom would play important parts in Texas history during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries–lived in Texas in pre‐Columbian times. Their origins may be traced to the northern Rocky Mountain region of the present‐day United States. The Apaches, for instance, were related linguistically to tribes in Canada and Alaska, while the Comanches had originally made their homes in the valleys of the upper Yellowstone and Platte rivers. No one knows when exactly these tribes commenced their pedestrian migration into the Great Plains (the geographical expanse immediately east of the Rocky Mountains) and the Southwest in the pursuit of buffalo. Historians do know that these Plains Indians found new power in the horse (acquired in the seventeenth century from raids upon fledgling Spanish settlements or by capturing wild herds), for they learned to ride horseback with great skill while hunting buffalo, conducting warfare, or relocating to newer locales.
A number of forces ultimately led the Plains Indians toward Texas. Mounted warfare produced winners and losers; the Comanches–the most successful because of their high mobility and unmatched riding skills–became such a terror on the Plains that the Apaches (namely the groups known as the Lipans and the Mescaleros) by the late seventeenth century began heading south to take refuge in Texas. So did the Wichitas from Oklahoma and Central Kansas, though they sought haven from their enemies attacking them from the upper Mississippi Valley. The Comanches, meanwhile, continued expanding their nomadic hunting grounds southward, pursuing buffalo on horseback, fighting the hated Apaches, and bolstering their pony herds by rounding up wild horses. For their part, the Apaches in their retreat southward threw so many lesser Texas tribal units into disarray that in Central Texas there formed a disparate group of refugees that collectively came to be known as the Tonkawas. As with the Apaches, the Tonkawas were no match for the Comanches, who by the early 1700s had arrived in Texas to become the dominant force in the northern, central, and western regions of the province.
In Texas, the Apaches, Comanches, Wichitas, and Tonkawas depended on the buffalo for almost all their essential items, including food, shelter, clothing, weapons, and tools. Using bows and arrows, the Plains Indians effectively hunted not only buffalo but also deer, antelope, turkeys, and other wild game. Small garden plots, however, provided a secondary source of food, and some of these bands raised maize and other vegetables including squash and beans. They also gathered berries and other domestic fauna such as agave, from which they made intoxicating beverages. Additionally, wild plants gave them herbs, fruits, and other products that they consumed themselves and used in barter.
The History of Texas
The Plains Indians lacked any pan‐tribal political structure, so families formed the basic social foundation. Groups of families under a chief composed working units that served to defend the people or to retaliate against other groups for wrongs inflicted. In some cases, their livelihood depended as much upon preying on other tribes who had items they needed for sustenance as it did upon reaping nature’s bounty. Fiercely independent, the Plainspeople held religious views that allowed for individual relationships with deities; their faith in a single, all‐powerful being was only ephemeral. Shamans, or religious figures, exerted no great authority among the wanderers of the Plains, as they mainly served to heal the infirm.
The Iberian Legacy
The first white people with whom the indigenous inhabitants of Texas competed for political and economic advantage came from the Iberian Peninsula–a part of Europe in which history had departed in substantive ways from that of the rest of the continent. The early history of Spain, however, does not belie this difference. Like the rest of Europe, the Iberian Peninsula had come under the rule of the Greeks and later was subsumed by the Roman Empire. From the Romans, Spaniards derived their language, law, customs, religious faith, and the name of their country–Hispania. When Spain, along with the rest of Europe, fell to invading tribes in the fifth century, the Visigoths swept over the peninsula and superimposed their way of life over that which the Romans had instilled. Like other Europeans, the Iberians then began forging new lifeways that combined the Roman influence, the newer Germanic contributions, and evolving Christian beliefs, for in Spain, as elsewhere, the Visigoths ended up assimilating the religion, language, and form of government of the people they had conquered.
The Muslim era and the reconquista
What chiefly separated the history of the Iberian peoples from that of the rest of western Europe was the conquest of Spain by Muslims from northern Africa (Arabic or Berber peoples known loosely as the Moors) who sought to spread their Islamic faith. Partly because of the Muslim domination of the peninsula, which began in ad 711, feudalism did not attain maturity in Christian Spain. The constant state of warfare to oust the Muslim intruders equalized social distinctions, thereby blurring class differences then prevalent in northern Europe. In each Christian state, furthermore, the war bolstered the role of the king as the military leader responsible for the reconquista (reconquest), the term generally used to refer to the centuries of struggle to regain Spain from the Muslims. Following a tradition used by the Moorish invaders, Christian fighters surrendered one‐fifth of the spoils of their conquests to the monarch–a custom that granted further power and wealth to the Crown. Because the Muslims were among the world’s best‐connected merchants, their influence helped Spain enjoy brisk economic activity with the Islamic world. Numerous Spanish cities became commercial hubs as their merchants developed prosperous ties with their counterparts in Africa, the several Mediterranean countries, and the Muslim world of the Middle East. Even Iberians who earned their living from the soil participated in the economic good times, as they sold their produce in domestic as well as export markets. Efforts to resist the aggressors and reconquer the motherland molded Spanish culture during the Middle Ages. Of the several Christian states that individually or jointly sought to push back the Moors,
none excelled Castile, the heartland of Spain stretching from the peninsula’s northern lands south to the central plateau. Castile’s campaign to expel the Muslim interlopers turned into a way of life that accentuated the warrior hallmarks of valor, tenacity, intrepidness, and survival at any cost–traits embraced by the conquistadores (conquerors) whatever their social station.
Through time, moreover, the Castilian reconquista assumed the aura of a religious crusade. The discovery in ad 900 of what Spaniards believed to be the burial site and body of the apostle Santiago (St. James the Great) in northern Spain, inspired Spanish religious fervor, for St. James supposedly had brought Christianity to Iberia. The reconquista prompted the Crown to bestow the role of ally upon the Catholic Church, and, in turn, the Church’s preaching in support of this cause rendered numerous social and political privileges to the clergy. By the thirteenth century, Catholic religious orders such as the Franciscans and Dominicans engaged in proselytizing activity among the Spanish Muslims.
The reconquista also encouraged the raising of sheep in agrarian Castile, for the Castilians found that sheep produced higher and quicker profits than did their crops. And unlike crops, herds could be moved quickly out of harm’s way during the constant warfare. When stockmen imported merino sheep from northern Africa in 1280, the Iberians bred them with their native stock. The new strain produced such a superior grade of wool that merchants in the international market eagerly sought the product, which brought handsome profits.
Cattle raising also flourished in the reconquered areas of southern Castile. In Andalusía, lords raised breeds of cattle that became widely known for the fine quality of their beef and hides. Seasonally, vaqueros, mounted herders, drove the stock cross‐country from the northern summer grazing lands to winter in southern pastures. The vaqueros developed a distinctive dress and equipment, as well as cattle‐ranching traditions and practices such as the rodeo (roundup) and the branding of calves for identification purposes, which were later transplanted to areas that came under Spain’s dominance.
Compared to other various European urban centers that experienced economic downturns, Spain’s cities witnessed a good deal of development, for in the process of reconquest, towns held down and consolidated the gains of battle. In return for their assistance in helping to regain territory from the Muslim “infidels,” towns received charters by which the king guaranteed townspeople the protection of their individual possessions and privileges and permitted them a semblance of self‐governance. During this period, city inhabitants came to belong to ayuntamientos (city councils), which elected town officials. Furthermore, they organized hermandades (brotherhoods) responsible for maintaining the peace. This new form of municipal government replaced the old Roman administrative structure that had broken down following the arrival of the Muslims.
Los Reyes Católicos
The two Iberian kingdoms of Castile and Aragón united in 1479, when Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragón, married since 1469, inherited the thrones of their respective dominions. Seeking to consolidate their power over the whole peninsula, the monarchs swiftly pressed for the pacification of the countryside and the subordination of the nobles, the Church, and the military orders, which had gained power during the final stages of the reconquista. The couple’s strategy for accomplishing their plans proved shrewd and inventive–even cunning. In order to suppress criminal activity, for instance, Isabella co‐opted the
The History of Texas
medieval institution of the hermandad, turning what had begun as municipal brotherhoods to defend mutual interests–ironically against the nobility–into a standing army for the Crown. Political gains made by individuals at the local level during the reconquista thus receded as los reyes católicos (the Catholic kings) began the task of molding Spain into a sovereign nation.
With a semblance of peace and unity restored domestically, the monarchs turned their attention to foreign policy. By the fifteenth century, technological advances enabled Spain to expand its commerce. Much of the new technology came from Portugal, where Prince Henry the Navigator had made brilliant strides in map making and ship building in an effort to see his own country be the first to probe the African coastline, establish sea routes to the Orient, and find a friendly ally for a besieged Christian Europe. As fate determined, it was Portugal’s rival, Spain, that used Henry’s inventions to discover a world completely unknown to Europe.
Columbus
In 1492, Isabella gave consent to the Italian mariner Christopher Columbus to sail under the flag of Spain in a westerly course to the East Indies. Columbus’s principal motives were economic and political gain, but a desire to spread his religion also prompted him. If successful, he would achieve great things for Spain and Latin Christendom.
From the port of Palos in southern Spain, Columbus, in command of three caravels, steered toward the Canary Islands, already claimed and colonized by the Spaniards. After reprovisioning there, the crews headed into the strong Atlantic seas never before sailed by Europeans. The admiral reckoned he would reach the Orient in 30 days, tap its riches, and in the process establish new allies and trading partners for the Christian world and open vast new lands for religious proselytizing. On October 12, 1492, after more than a month at sea, Columbus sighted land. But he had not reached Asia, as he had assumed he had; rather he came ashore on the modern‐day Bahamas. He named the first island on which he stepped San Salvador (Holy Savior).
The conquistadores
Following Columbus’s grand find, Spain proceeded swiftly to transform the “New World,” as the Europeans had dubbed it, into colonies that would provide the Spaniards with the elusive riches they had hoped to reap by finding a shortcut to the Orient. Now a new wave of conquistadores, who in many ways resembled those who had reclaimed the peninsula from the Muslims–having ousted the last of the Moors from Granada in 1492–took the initiative for the acquisition and subordination of new dominions. Characteristics of the traditional conquistador–courage and tenacity, but also callousness, a propensity toward violence, religious zeal, and a desire for gold and glory–typified those who led the conquest of the New World.
Columbus himself played a major part in the takeover of the Caribbean Islands, but the exploration, and exploitation, of the New World proved too vast for one man’s energies. Numerous explorers thus left what had been labeled the “West Indies” for fresh explorations; among them was Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Balboa ultimately crossed the Central American Isthmus, and in 1513, he claimed the Pacific Ocean on behalf of the king of Spain.
Contact
In the same year, Juan Ponce de León reached Florida, bringing the North American peninsula into the Spanish sphere, though the Spaniards did not succeed in settling the region until the 1560s. The expedition to establish control over modern‐day Mexico was spearheaded by several intriguing war campaigns led by Hernán Cortés, who by 1521 had conquered and plundered Montezuma’s Aztec empire, paving the way for the ruthless domination of the rest of Mexico. In Peru, conquest of the Incas fell to an unlettered conquistador named Francisco Pizarro, who arrived there in 1532, eventually executed the emperor, and despoiled buildings and shrines of their treasures throughout Inca settlements. Blood, rapine, and plunder marked the Spaniards’ path through Peru, as it had their swath through Mexico.
Looking for Fortunes in Texas
Just as the atmosphere of fifteenth‐century Spain helped to mold the ruthless nature of the exploring Spaniards, so, too, did it shape their desire to find riches and amass fortunes. Many people in late medieval Europe still believed in romantic tales of mythic adventure, and books describing fantastic places of great riches and enchantment stimulated Spanish hopes of finding the fabled land of the warlike Amazon women, of the opulent Seven Cities, and the legendary Fountain of Youth. The very real treasures (gold and silver, principally) that the conquistadores did find in Mexico and in Peru only encouraged their people’s convictions that the dreams of lore were indeed realizable in the New World.
It was this search for great fortune that led the Spaniards to the land now known as Texas (Figure 1.4). The earliest European penetration of what was to become Texas occurred accidentally in 1528, shortly after Pánfilo de Narváez led 400 men into Florida. Landing first near today’s Sarasota Bay, Narváez took three‐fourths of his crew ashore with him to investigate stories of a golden land. Narváez and his men were left stranded on Florida’s west coast, however, after miscommunications prompted his ships to depart for Cuba without them.
Improvising, Narváez and his fellow castaways killed their mounts, fashioning five small boats from the horse hides, in which they hoped to float along the Gulf Coast and eventually reach Mexico. But on a spit of land close to the western portion of modern‐day Galveston Island, the Spaniards were shipwrecked and forced to brave the winter of 1528–29. Enslaved by a band of coastal Indians, only a handful of the Spaniards, among them Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Estevanico, a Moorish slave, survived into the spring. After years in bondage, and with their number now down to four, Cabeza de Vaca persuaded the others to escape and follow him. Posing as “medicine men” as they traveled, the Spaniards undertook a remarkable odyssey that led them across the Rio Grande, to a spot northwest of present‐day Roma, Texas, then on through northern Mexico and eventually back into Texas, near today’s Presidio. From there, they trekked along the east bank of the Rio Grande, toward a site some seventy‐five miles below El Paso, then back across the Rio Grande into Mexico and, finally, into the Spanish frontier town of Culiacán, in the western province of Sinaloa.
Upon his arrival in Culiacán in 1536, Cabeza de Vaca had much to tell, including tales of riches existing in the lands somewhere north of those he had roamed. To confirm his reports, the Crown in 1539 dispatched Friar Marcos de Niza to the northern lands, with Estevanico accompanying him as a scout. In present‐day western New Mexico, the friar, supposedly viewing a Pueblo Indian town from a distant hilltop, reported upon his return
of having seen a glittering city of silver and gold. Niza’s fabulous vision may be accounted for by the reflective quartz imbedded in the walls of the adobe dwellings sparkling in the sunlight, but Spanish officials interpreted his testimony as evidence of the existence of the fabled Seven Cities. Their general location was deemed Cíbola, a term meaning buffalo, which the Spaniards had heard the Indians use and now applied as a place‐name to the pueblos of the Zuñis.
Historians question whether or not Niza actually traveled as far as Cíbola, but whatever the truth, Niza’s report raised expectations among the Spaniards, and the viceroy assigned Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to lead a follow‐up expedition. Coronado arrived in Zuñi country the next year, only to discover that Niza’s glittering cities were, indeed, merely adobe complexes. Conflict soon brewed with the Pueblos, for Coronado and his troops mistreated the villagers and inflicted numerous indignities upon them, even burning some Pueblo people at the stake. After this, newly generated tales of a golden kingdom called Gran Quivira induced other parties of Spaniards to venture out upon the Great Plains, but as they crossed what we know today as the Texas Panhandle, none saw anything of value to themselves or the Crown.
